TIME’s David Von Drehle digs into Kagan’s much-discussed senior thesis from her time at Princeton University to see if there’s any truth to the rumors the Supreme Court nominee was once a hard-lined socialist. What’s the verdict? …

Scientists studying aboard a research ship in the gulf are discovering huge underwater oil plumes up to 10 miles long, a result of the April 20 oil rig explosion in the Gulf. But what do the plumes mean?

In a trend that shows few signs of slowing down, one in four U.S. households prefer to do their phone communications via mobile phones rather than utilizing a land line, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control.

After the failure of British Petroleum’s containment dome to stop the undersea oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company says it will attempt to install a second, smaller dome over the main leak point nearly a mile beneath the surface.